Chatkal Snow Leopard Sanctuary
The Chatkal Snow Leopard Sanctuary is a protected area of about 45,000 hectares of high peaks, glaciers and subalpine scree in the eastern Chatkal range, in the Chatkal Highlands zone of the Autonomous Tribal Regions. It protects habitat for the snow leopard, the Siberian ibex, the argali and the lammergeier.[1]
The area was first protected as a Soviet hunting reserve. Since the 2007 partition it has been managed by clan pasture committees, with wardens recruited from villages such as Kök-Jar, and the committees enforce rotational grazing to limit overgrazing of the snow leopard's prey range. Researchers from Talas State University monitor its wildlife. Camera-trap surveys have identified about a dozen individual snow leopards using the sanctuary, part of a population that ranges more widely along the western Tian Shan.[1][2]
References
- ^ World Wildlife Fund (2022). Snow Leopard Corridors in the Western Tian Shan: Habitat Assessment. WWF Central Asia, pp. 45–62.
- ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 88–131.